700.

Happy Tuesday y'all!

I hope everyone's day has been all that's necessary for continued love and happiness.

It's been quite thrilling on my end.

My day started out quietly. I rose around 8:30 a.m. and saw that it was overcast out. 

Realizing that today is October 4, I remembered that I wanted to get frozen fruit from my local supermarket while it was still on sale.

An hour later, I walked out into what I thought was the cool breeze of a new fall morning.

There was a cool breeze blowing but a few feet from my door, I realized it was also humid.

A bit of a bummer but I was already out so I marched on. (I had decided to walk.)

At the corner I saw a few neighbors I hadn't seen in a while. I stopped for a pleasant chat. We said goodbye and I crossed the street.

I noticed that another (elderly) neighbor's door was open. I hadn't seen her in a while as well so I went over and knocked at the storm door. Her dog came barking but she didn't appear. I knocked again and waited. No sign of her. So I knocked more.

She didn't come to the door. I thought she might be in the bathroom so I continued on my way, making a mental note to check again when I next passed by.

On my way home, I must have switched to auto pilot because I don't recall whether or not her door was open or closed. Maybe because I was a wee bit sweaty and anxious to get home to strip off my damp clothes.

When I went out again, I noticed that her door was (still?) open. I knocked again and waited. Once again the dog came to the door and again no neighbor.

But I wasn't leaving until I got a response or the police came to check on her.

Thankfully she came to the door after I had been knocking steadily for about half a minute.

I explained to her that I'd come by earlier and was worried because I'd gotten no answer.

She looked at me blankly for a few moments then said she believed she'd been home all day and was probably just in the back when I knocked earlier.

As I told her I was glad she was okay, I had to wipe a few tears. Seriously. Because she's a senior, I didn't know if maybe she was laying inside injured or in some other form of distress due to a health condition.

I didn't tell her how concerned I felt when she said she was probably in the back (with the door open) or how it worried me that if she didn't hear me knocking it's likely she wouldn't have heard anyone who decided to walk in on her.

We actually live in an area with almost nonexistent stats for certain types of crime. Perhaps my penchant for Justice Channel programming and "Criminal Minds" episodes is the real issue here.

* * *

In other neighborhood news, a neighbor who I helped in the recent past tried to suck me into a vortex of doing more favors.

*sigh*

Some people...

It's not that I don't like helping people. Lawd knows I wouldn't be where I am today without assistance of some sort and I believe in paying it forward.

I'm also an empath and actually feel varying types of pain when I see or hear about another's pain. If I can help stop that hurting, I will. But not if it's to my own detriment.

My preference for receiving help happens to be asking for information that allows me to help myself instead of asking someone for what I consider a handout.

Yes, I do know we're all different and each of us may handle aspects of our lives differently.

I also know that some people are users who will never tire of asking.

Some of my family members are guilty of asking, preferring to beg (under the guise of borrowing) instead of being proactive with their own finances.

It's taken a while but I've developed a number of ways to deter such behavior. 

First I had to thicken my skin, so as to be able to not give a rat's ass about what might be said about me when I decline to offer my services.

Second, I say no. If that doesn't work, I ignore. If the requests keep coming, I delete and block the person from my life. (Phone contact/s, social media, etc.)

To reiterate, I help when I can. Which I actually prefer to do anonymously when possible. Helping someone else is for him or her, not for accolades. 

 But again, some will make it a habit to ask again and again, a nasty habit I'm no longer enabling.

For those folk, I can offer prayer while I tend to my business.

Amen.